Cover story: Finding his city of promise

A former South Vietnamese soldier found the home he was seeking for his family.

By RON CUNNINGHAM

Phuoc Duong’s Gainesville journey of 8,000 miles began on an unstable, overcrowded refugee boat through storm-tossed, pirate-infested waters.

That was four years after the fall of Saigon. Duong had been a soldier in the South Vietnamese Army and a translator for the Americans. But when the Americans left, he stayed behind. “I was an idealist,” he says. “I thought the war is over and things will get better.”

They didn’t. Instead, feeding and caring for his family of four only got more difficult. And because he had fought for the losing side, Duong’s three daughters — then ages 11, 9 and 7 — were not allowed an education.

Sensing trouble was coming, his wife, Dep Le Duong, had taken the precaution of burying enough gold to leave.

Ultimately a long and dangerous voyage would lead to a months-long detention in a crowded refugee camp in Malaysia. Duong learned that he could come to the U.S. if he had an American sponsor. David Williamson, a soldier friend from Duong’s days working with the U.S. Army, was attending the University of Florida at the time and agreed to sponsor the family.

And so, in May 1979, Duong’s journey ended here in this university city.

And he remains here nearly 40 years later, despite frequent urging by his wife and daughters to go elsewhere.

He stayed here, Duong says, precisely because this is a city of higher learning.

“I started taking some classes at Santa Fe,” he recalls. “Then working part time in the chemistry lab.” Eventually Duong became full-time lab manager at SFC’s chemistry lab, which made it possible for his children to go to college tuition free.

“I have a rule in my family,” he says. “Nobody leaves home without at least a bachelor’s degree.”

Which is how all three of his daughters — Minh-giao Le Duong, Minh-Tri Le Duong and Minh-Quyen Le Duong — were able to graduate from the University of Florida on a lab manager’s modest pay. Minh-Giao and Minh-Quyen now work in the pharmaceutical industry, and Minh-Tri is the director of ambulatory Service for Tampa General Hospital.

“My experience has been that Gainesville is a very welcoming community,” says Duong, who frequently rides his bicycle from his Jonesville-area home to have coffee with his friends in Gainesville. “We have had many close relationships and have never been made to feel like we don’t belong.”